M17x-R2 with Nvidia 480M (single/SLI), Rumors, Speculations?

What I would wish for - as I too think ATI drivers are a dead end and GTX480M is a dead card - an AW M17x R3 with SLI GTX460M - that I would think would be a perfect and very fast system.

 

The ATI drivers are not responsible for the issues but Dell is as vbios is not flexible in the M17X.

The SLI 460M will most likely perform worse than the Crossfire 5870 not sure the R3 you are proposing is a winning situation.

The solution is for Dell to be reasonable and fix the driver issues with the crossfire 5870 and the M17X will then be a near perfect laptop.

 

Dell just needs to ditch their lousy powerplay tweaks and do away with it completely. Clevo doesn't have powerplay enabled on their 5870s for a good reason, because it doesn't work! Dell created their own custom vbios with their own powerplay table and as a result the generic drivers from ATi have issues with them. The best and only way to do this properly is to issue a vbios update that users can apply but I highly doubt Dell would ever do this. This company is notorious for always screwing one thing or another up. The hardware is great but when Dell tinkers with it, it goes to crap. I wish Clevo designed better looking notebooks with higher quality material, RGB LED/IPS 10-bit and backlit keyboards, I'd ditch Dell/AW without a second thought.

Anyway, I think we'll see a GTX 480M in the next few months but I doubt we'll see SLi.

 

Keep the ATI driver/issue discussion to the 10.7 thread please. No need derail the topic of 480M as it relates to the R2.

Thanks.

 

I just found out that the R2 motherboard (PM55) allows for SLI just that Dell won't write a vbios to support it. However, 480M-480M's would be a ridiculous solution for the R2 since they are known to run hot, But a single 460M or SLI 285M's would be perfect IMO!!!
I am curious if Dell did update the vbios to support Nvidia if we could use a 285M or 460M for CUDA and PhysX and a 5870 as primary would be beneficial or even possible for that matter?

 

That would be totally worthless even if it were possible. Dedicating the second slot entirely to physx is so wasteful considering the price of mobile gpus, the lack of physx games and the fact that the drivers probably wouldn't allow physx with an ati in the system.
Coupled with the fact that you'd lose 50% of potential performance for this... it's just not worth it at all.

 

I didn't think that having a Nvidia card in the second slot would be entirely wasteful or as you said dedicating that slot to just PhysX or CUDA for that matter because the actual graphical power of the 285M or 460M would still be utilized by the app or program and not just gaming. I think that it would be a really cool union between the two not to mention the fact that the notebook would have the raw power of both gpu's. Honestly how would I lose 50% performance by using the two if I am not totally dedicating the Nvidia card to PhysX? Also, I thought that even though ATI is currently being utilized that PhysX could also be utilized by the cpu to add that extra performance boost.

 

The two cards wouldn't work together - it would be an either/or situation. The card in the main slot would be the gpu and the only thing that the nvidia could be used for in that setup is a physx card.
Doing it the other way around would be useless because the 5870 doesn't have physx so u would lose the benefit of the card entirely.
You'd end up with a single 5870m with an unneccecerily powerful physx card or a single 285m.
That's why it's a waste...

 

agreed, there is absolutely no reason to do this,

 

Eurocom serves up GTX 480M SLI and HD 5870 CrossFireX options, seasons with Core i7-980X -- Engadget

Since these guys have it coming out I'm guessing the m17x might one day have it too... Im wondering how good the cooling in this thing is though

 

Difference is that system was designed for 2 480M's and the M17x was not.

 

that's correct. However, the HSF on the M17x isn't so horrible as we imagined. With the performance mod people see 66-68C furmark temps. It's a good reinforcement that there's definitally a lot of play room left in the M17x if dell recognises that their installtion of the HSF is incorrect. The only issue would be if acutally consumes 25W more than the MXM specification calls for. It's interesting though,

they first say that they're MXM3.0b slots, but then say it supports 100W GPUs..

 

The MXM spec only means that the circuitry and connectors have to be able to handle upto 75W to meet the criteria

There is not going to be any circuitry in place preventing you from exceeding that wattage I am guessing. Clevo most likely just overbuilt their motherboard to make sure it will not die under that added strain.

Good to see these may finally make it into a release....

 

I would assume so considering there is no additional power connector to the card. The next time I take the computer apart I'm going to look up what kind of power the moffsets are designed for. The only other problem I can see are the additional ramchips on the backside of the card, but this is just rehiterating stuff we already know.. Who knows though, Dell managed to swag LV 5870s for us, maybe they could do the same with 480M's and end up with a smaller than 100W package.

edit: it should be noted that the X7200 currently is designed with a 300W PSU package, I don't see any reason why we can assume the 100W is a TDP figure and not an acutal power consumption figure.

 

eurocom is charging 1500.00 for the sli.and the power brick is only 300w

 

300 wats ...... great not the laptops don,t have a power consumsion adventage on desktops anymore

 

I would be happy with a single 480M but for Sli even a pair of 460M would be a decent offering.

If the single 480M option was there, they could stick a 240 in the second slot for PHYSX, or as the lower opwer GPU option

 

Exactly. I think the timing is more related to Huron River and a nice "timing" to a changeover (as well as getting rid of old stock "current models") than it has to do with ability.

Clevo usually shows the way and Alienware plays catchup 6 months later. It's a good bet that Alienware will lag them again by the same 6 months with 480M SLI.

 

Hmmm.....Alienware has been in the lead for more than a year now......

They are most likely not released yet due to power/heat issues or something like the DPC latency that kept the x8100 from coming out for months

 

That does ring a bell, lol

 

would be nice 480m's, or even just 1 with a 3d ready rgb led screen would be a dream for me...

 

I believe we might actually see the ATI 6000 series on the M17X before we see the 480M.

 

Now I would love that.

 

I was pretty sure Clevo had 5870's before Alienware. If I'm incorrect about that apologies. Was thinking, from that, that the 480M was the same way, that AW would get it "eventually".

The R1 has taken a long time to clear stocks, which could have impacted the timing. Sometimes you don't want to bring out something new that will kill off things you have large inventories of.

 

I can't see that happening. Look how long it took for them to get a 5870 in there, and that's only a 50W card.